Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Opportunities For Influence

Unless you are a hermit and live in a cave somewhere you interact with people every day. There are a lot of days that I work at home and even then I still have some interaction with other people either through a telephone call, an email, or through some other means over the Internet. No matter how we make our connections with other people we have an opportunity to be a positive or negative influence on them. Even if you just go shopping or something like that you are still around people that you can have an influence on one way or another.

About a year ago a couple of people encouraged me to create a Facebook account. It has been a good experience overall as I have been able to connect with friends and family that I might not otherwise have had much contact with. But I have also noticed that Facebook and other social networking Internet sites are great opportunities for influencing others. Through the Internet we have opportunities to reach out and influence others in a way that was not possible just a few years ago, but I wonder if we are all using these means we have in the best way possible.

Recently I was thinking about some people I have known in the past and what kind of an influence they had on me. There are people that I have known who helped me get to the place I am at today because they took advantage of the opportunities that were available to make a positive impact on my life. At times I have wondered how different my life would be if some of these people had not done what they did for me. It inspires me to want to do more to make an impact on others and to use every tool I have available to me to get the job done. If I am able to be in direct contact with someone then I can do it in person. If I am on the phone, writing an email, or even posting some status update on Facebook I want it to be something that will help to point people in the right direction and make a positive impact on their life. It would be a good thing if we all made the choice to take advantage of the opportunities available to us and to be a positive influence on the people around us in every way we can.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Change Your Words And Change Your Life

"A man will be satisfied with good by the fruit of his mouth, and the recompense of a man's hands will be rendered to him." Proverbs 12:14 (NKJV)

"A man's stomach shall be satisfied from the fruit of his mouth; from the produce of his lips he shall be filled." Proverbs 18:20 (NKJV)

These two verses tell a very important Bible truth; our words will have an influence on our life. In November of last year I wrote another blog about the importance of our words. This is such a vital topic that I wanted to say some more about it. This subject is something that we see over and over again in the Bible but it seems most Christians do not really understand what their words are doing for them and even to them.

Some people would say that their life is just not what it should be and that they are not satisfied with how their life is going. My answer would be Proverbs 12:14 and Proverbs 18:20, our life is what it is now because of the things we have said in the past. There have been times when I have told people about these verses and said that if they are not satisfied with their life then they should check what they are saying. When people take a look at their life and see that it is filled with things they don't like and they are in situations that they want to change I tell them that they need to change what they say.

Now I know that the whole message of what our words will do for us has been taken to an extreme by some people but this does not do away with the biblical truth that our words will shape our life. In James 2 it compares our tongue to the rudder on a ship showing us that we can set the course for our life by the things that we say. If we will use our words wisely and say the right kinds of words it will change our life. If we would start saying what the Bible says about who we are, our life today, and our future and less about what things look like and what other people have said we would change the course of our life. If you aren't satisfied with how things are going in your life and your world seems to be filled with nothing but trouble then change what you say and you will change your life!